Russian stocks rise on strong corporate data, better environment

MOSCOW, Apr 17 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market rose on Tuesday due to improving external background and positive domestic corporate events, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index grew 2.22% to 2,191.19 and the RTS rose 3.35% to 1,121.48.

“The U.S. government has not released a new set of sanctions against Russian companies (promised by the state’s officials earlier) which has been perceived by local investors positively… Russian companies which slid to their multiple years’ lows last week including Sberbank, RUSAL and Yandex were among the top performers,” Yevgenia Abramovich, head of the currency risks analysis department at Swiss brokerage house Dukascopy Bank S.A, said.

Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov said that the domestic market was supported by a series of investigative reports in the U.S. and British press including The Independent claiming there had been no chemical attacks in Syria, which is strengthening Russia’s positions on the global arena.

The market was also backed by strong oil with the Brent crude futures consolidating at around U.S. $71.5 per barrel.

Top lender Sberbank’s common shares surged 8.04% to 207.50 rubles after CEO German Gref had said the supervisory board recommended paying 36.2% of the IFRS net profit in dividends for 2017.

Steelmaker Severstal was driven up 3.09% to 922.7 rubles by its sound IFRS financial report for January–March marking an almost 30% rise in the net profit.

Below are the MOEX Russia Index’s five most active stocks on Tuesday:

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank, common	+8.04%	207.5	34.627
Lukoil	+1.23%	3940	3.988
Gazprom	+0.64%	142.4	3.793
Sberbank, preferred	+5.33%	181.79	3.092
Norilsk Nickel	+3.32%	10229	2.856

(62.2794 rubles – U.S. $1)

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